By Jase Walker
So, after many, many years I finally get to tick off a bucket list band that I’ve somehow managed to miss every time they’ve toured the ÜK, Mogwai. This post-rock outfit seems to be as elusive to me as Explosions In The Sky was until I managed to catch them in this same venue a while back.
For this particular tour, they’ve brought with them 3ra1n1ac (or Brainiac in plain English – Ed), who I’ve been told by friends who saw this show last night while I was elsewhere that they’re quite at odds with Mogwai’s sound. I’m getting quite fond of live lineups that are just generally weird selections of bands because you get some real gems that you probably wouldn’t find normally.
After a fair wait since I got in for doors, 3ra1n1ac begin their show, an interesting, discordant and noisy introduction to say the least. My friends evidently weren’t kidding when they were talking about the pretty different style, a very punk edge to them but with electronic noise along with layered effects driven guitar wailing. It’s quite bizarre because it’s unmistakably punk in almost everything but it often sounds like they’re playing the chords in the wrong order at times and not even in a math rock sort of sense either. Looking down across the main crowd there’s an amusing mix of people who are clearly loving it and others that are standing looking very perplexed at what they’re seeing.
Admittedly I’m not super keen on them, however I do find their extremely intense use of discordant playing quite entertaining and it’s something I do quite enjoy in a lot of stuff that I listen to, I’m just not a fan of punk. They move toward the end of their set with a really weirdly poppy song at the end that reminds me quite a lot of the sort of bizarre stuff that The Klaxons are well known for with high falsetto and wailing synths, I actually quite enjoyed that! It’s not to say that they didn’t put on a great show, it’s energy level was pretty remarkable and I don’t know how they are able to consistently put on a show like that night after night. Definitely one to check if you like really really weird punk.
No real big intro or anything from Mogwai: on they walk, a quick “good to be back” and off they go on what is looking to be quite the lengthy set. As with most post-rock, it builds and swells to a massive crescendo and the use of lighting to really drive home the intensity of some passages is absolutely unreal. A mix of spiralling beams or the draped pillar lights they have hanging high above the stage or even some of the floor lights creating solid beams of light up and down the stage in parts is incredible. Were barely into the start of the start and I’m already mesmerised by this set, each song feels like a journey that takes you through three separate acts; as you would in a film act one sets the feel of the song, act two fuses the components of the first act together and act three runs full to the immense peak.
Considering I’m sitting to the side of the stage on the upper floor in Albert Hall, the sound is absolutely fantastic from here as well. There’s no weird panning as you can sometimes get when you’re a bit too close to the side: I can hear all the guitars, keys, bass and drums equally well. The sheer force of Mogwai when they hit the peak of some of the songs they’ve played tonight is oppressive, an almost literal wall of sound that’s thick with layering (no seriously, two bass guitars at one point?). There’s so much going on at many points in this set but it’s easy to pick out what each person’s doing, even down to supporting melodies that would often sit behind everything else.
To summarize this show on the whole, it’s been 90 minutes of incredibly intense music that’s flowed between building tension and then opening the floodgates to straight up euphoria. It’s not just about the sound for this show though, the lightning has done an immense job of delivering the atmosphere of this show. Post-rock has always been a particularly interesting genre because it’s rarely about the band going mental on stage and provoking the audience to do the same, it’s much more focused on the delivery of an overall experience and that’s exactly what Mogwai have done tonight. Another one for my list of gigs that I’ll be agonizing over what was best for 2023. Spectacular.
- The tour continues:
- All content © Über Rock. Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Über Rock.